51吃瓜 of the Day
pacific
adjective
tending to make or preserve peace; conciliatory: pacific overtures.
More about pacific
The adjective pacific ultimately derives from the Latin adjective 辫腻肠颈蹿颈肠耻蝉 鈥渕aking peace, peaceable,鈥� a compound derived from 辫腻虫 (inflectional stem 辫腻肠– 鈥減eace鈥�) and –ficus, a combining form of the verb facere 鈥渢o do, make.鈥� In the Vulgate (the late 4th-century Latin version of the Bible, used by the Roman Catholic Church), 辫腻肠颈蹿颈肠耻蝉 as an adjective means 鈥減eace-loving,鈥� and as a noun 鈥減eace offerings.鈥� The Romans wanted peace like everyone else, but on their own terms. The great Roman historian Tacitus in his Agricola, a biography of his father-in-law, has the British chieftain Calgacus deliver a speech in which Calgacus says of the Romans, 鈥� ubi s艒lit奴dinem faciunt, 辫腻肠em appellant, 鈥溾�� where they make a desert, they call it peace.鈥� Pacific entered English in the 16th century.
how is pacific used?
My mother was a very calm, pacific individual, and I learned from her to be the same way.
In this way arose the Roman empire, the largest, the most stable, and in its best days the most pacific political aggregate the world had as yet seen.
sidesplitter
noun
something that is uproariously funny, as a joke or a situation.
More about sidesplitter
Sidesplitter is perfectly obvious in its derivation and meaning: something that is so uproariously funny that you split your sides from laughing. Sidesplitter first appears in a weekly newspaper, the New-York Mirror, in 1834 and slightly later in England.
how is sidesplitter used?
If the lyric 鈥淚n New York, you can be a real ham鈥� sounds like a sidesplitter, this one鈥檚 for you.
My appreciation of the short form was enhanced when I discovered the quirky humor of Damon Runyon and Ring Larder, clearly at their peak in a twenty-page sidesplitter.
beaucoup
adjective
Informal: Usually Facetious.
many; numerous; much: It's a hard job, but it pays beaucoup money.
More about beaucoup
In French, beaucoup is an adverb meaning (in various combinations) 鈥渁 lot, lots, lots of, much, many.鈥� Beaucoup first appeared in American English about 1760 in the sense 鈥渁 lot, many.鈥� The word, whether used as a singular or plural, was rare before 1918, when the United States became fully engaged in World War I, as in 鈥淲e鈥檝e been spending beaucoup francs lately for Uncle Sam,鈥� and as an adverb 鈥渧ery, very much,鈥� as in Ernest Hemingway鈥檚 鈥淚’m pulling through my annual tonsilitis now so feel bokoo rotten鈥� (1918). During the 1960s and ’70s, American servicemen returning from Vietnam popularized the word and introduced the spellings boo-koo, boocoo(p).
how is beaucoup used?
Grassroots support, a powerful message and good timing can still win elections, even without beaucoup bucks.
Of course, one can ignore the message and simply revel briefly in the traditional values: the days of beaucoup聽silverware, heaping platters of mutton, folks upstairs and downstairs.